We like to think and talk about strange and excluded things: from ghosts and UFOs to forgotten history and strange beliefs. See below for more details.
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In Victorian Britain an array of writers captured the excitement of new scientific discoveries, and enticed young readers and listeners into learning their secrets by converting explanations into quirky, charming, and imaginative fairy-tales; natural forces could be fairies, dinosaurs could be dragons, and looking closely at a drop of water revealed a soup of monsters.

In exploring the ways in which authors and translators – from Hans Christian Andersen to the pseudonymous ‘A.L.O.E.’ and ‘Acheta Domestica’ – reconciled the differing demands of factual accuracy and fantastical narratives, Melanie Keene asks why the fairies and their tales were chosen as an appropriate new form for capturing and presenting scientific and technological knowledge to young audiences. Such stories, she argues, were an important way in which authors and audiences criticised, communicated, and celebrated contemporary scientific ideas, practices, and objects.Science in Wonderland explores how these stories were presented and read.

Melanie Keene is a historian of science for children, based at Homerton College, Cambridge. She has

published several academic and popular articles on scientific books and objects from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, on topics from candles, pebbles, or cups of tea, to board games, toy sets, and model dinosaurs.

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

London Fortean Society in association with Conway Hall presentsThe Terror of London: Spring-heeled Jack and the Victorian Metropolitan PressThis event is now sold out. Thank you for such a great response for what is a brilliant talk on a dark and fascinating subject. We may have some spaces on the night - please come to Conway Hall on Tuesday night. Karl Bell£5 (Tickets)Tuesday 30 June 20157.30pmConway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RLTube: Holborn / Directions.Facebook event page.

One of London's greatest monsters, Spring-heeled Jack has held the city's imagination in his claws since he first appeared as "a ghost, a bear, and a devil" right up to contemporary comics and internet radio dramas featuring the leaping horror of legend.This talk explores Spring-heeled Jack’s appearances in and relationship to Victorian London. It considers his origins in the capital, and the way the metropolitan press gave life to a strange urban legend that went on to terrorise the rest of the country.Dr Karl Bell is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth. He has published on a variety of topics linked to magic and the supernatural in nineteenth-century Britain. He is the author of two books, 'The Magical Imagination: Magic and Modernity in Urban England' 1780-1914' (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and 'The Legend of Spring-heeled Jack: Victorian Urban Folklore and Popular Cultures' (Boydell and Brewer, 2012). The latter won the 2013 Katharine Briggs Award.This event is sold out. Thank you for such a great response for what is a brilliant talk on a dark and fascinating subject. We may have some spaces on the night - please come to Conway Hall on Tuesday night. The Terror of London: Spring-heeled Jack and the Victorian Metropolitan PressKarl Bell£5 (Tickets)Tuesday 30 June 20157.30pmConway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RLTube: Holborn / Directions.

Saturday, 13 June 2015

8pm (doors 7.30pm)Thursday 25 June 2015£4 / £2 concessions (please note new price!)Advanced tickets available (10% admin fee)The Vaults Bar, Dirty Dicks, 202 Bishopsgate, City of London EC2M 4NRBus / train / tube: Liverpool StreetFacebook event page. David will be selling his book, 'How UFOs Conquered the World' for £15 (rrp £20 hard back) on the night.The UFO was born in America during the summer of 1947. A lone pilot saw nine mysterious objects that flew ‘like a saucer would if you skipped it across water’ and the media did the rest. Today, almost half the population of the Western world believe we are not alone. Millions of people claim to have seen a UFO. An alarming number reported being ‘abducted’ by aliens. And some are convinced there is a conspiracy by governments to hide ‘the truth’.

As a child during the 1970s, Fortean Times writer David Clarke wanted to believe. He joined a UFO society, went ‘skywatching’, and later, as a journalist, spent decades investigating sighting reports, unearthing Top Secret government files, and interviewing those who claim they have seen interplanetary craft and had met their occupants. He never found a crashed flying saucer, or received a visit from the sinister Men In Black. Instead he discovered something no less astonishing.How UFOS Conquered The World describes David’s strange journey to the heart of the UFO phenomenon. He has close encounters with abductees, hoaxers and conspiracy theorists. He meets people who think aliens are angels (or demons). And he tracks down the boffins who ran the British government’s now defunct ‘UFO desk’ to find out what their investigations really uncovered. Along the way he reveals how the human will to believe turned the stuff of science fiction into the most enduring myth of modern times.David will be selling his book, 'How UFOs Conquered the World' for £15 (rrp £20 hard back) on the night.£4 / £2 concessions (please note new price!)Advanced tickets available (10% admin fee)The Vaults Bar, Dirty Dicks, 202 Bishopsgate, City of London EC2M 4NRBus / train / tube: Liverpool StreetFacebook event page.